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Comment by foxfired | Hacker News Reader

This past year, I noticed people reaching out to me whenever my employer is hiring. These seem to be new graduates, and there is a pattern in the way ask for a reference or a job:

  - "Hey, I applied, could you hire me?"
  - "I have a compsci, I'm qualified, I sent a resume"
  - "can I use you as a reference?"

These are people I've never met, yet they are so direct to the point of being rude. But to the best of my knowledge, they are real people. And what it looks like is that I'm contact #258 in a spreadsheet, because they have to cast an extremely wide net to hope for a single response. When I respond, they are lost because they don't even remember which of the job I was a contact for.

I don't envy anyone looking for a job right now.

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I'm guessing it is due to the advice that getting a job is a "numbers game".

When I was hiring somewhat recently, I talked to a worryingly high number of people that didn't know what role they're applying to, had perfect resumes and were taking the fake-it-till-you-make-it attitude to its limit. I mean I get there's a sales aspect to an interview, in a way, but this was pushing it way too far. It was a very frustrating experience.

A lot of the recent advice has pretty much destroyed the hiring process, in my humble opinion. It swings from solving hard computer science problems to testing trivia to being a political round-table. I keep on wondering how much worse can it get before a reset is needed.

tbh a lot of roles are pretty similar where it doesn't really matter that much...

It is a generational difference. Zoomers have a tendency to communicate like Jordan Belfort. Oftentimes it seems scammy but it is prevalent because it sometimes leads to new opportunities.

I block those people

This is why I honestly think it would be better if the popular job boards limited the number of applications you could submit per day. The game theory of the job market incentivizes spray and pray.

That wouldn't work. Candidates would just create multiple accounts, and apply from multiple job boards. Or they would use the job board to find the employer's own careers web page and apply directly there.

Apps like tinder already deal with the multiple account problem - not an unknown challenge.

I’ll admit the second issue is harder, and would require some kind of common application standard framework.

I still maintain that the status quo of noise drowning out signal is horrifically bad, and I don’t think job boards making things even more frictionless is helping.

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